8/14/12

Mid-August in the back 40

I ran in to Kelly at the Dead Can Dance concert last weekend. She said Garden Blogger Spring Fling 2013 is slated for San Francisco? Is that right? First I'd heard of it! Anyway, I may or may not participate in the Fling itself, but I definitely have some suggestions for gardens you should visit and maybe for accommodations too. San Francisco is expensive. I would love to meet some of you. Would you come over for dinner one night?

Anyway, our chance encounter reminded me that I am a garden blogger. I took some pictures to prove it.

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The big pivot to monocots continues as the monocots already planted get bigger and bigger.

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It won't ever be all monocots though, at least not in this garden. I've always got to have something for the insects. For the last few years, the fennel (I have three big clumps of it) are crawling with swallowtail caterpillars, but that has not been the case this year. Wherefore art thou, caterpillars?

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I thought I had more Asclepias curassavica than just this one. I most have lost a couple. I will grow more.

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The Meyer lemon is bent over with fruit. We'll be having fancy lemonade for indian summer in September and October. Meanwhile, I've been snipping off the leaves as they turn yellow. Ugly!

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I snipped all the leaves off the buckeye too. It loses them this time of year anyway when they turn brown and drop off to mitigate the effects of the long summer drought, but I don't care to witness the transition.

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I culled all the dead things out of the nursery, and replaced them with new, living things. I'm ready to sow seeds like I used to, but first I have to get my lazy ass to the real nursery to get some growth media. I'm out.

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I came very close to removing Fuchsia 'Miep' this year in a made pruning frenzy, but at the last moment, before the last cut, I put the saw down. She's now growing back all over the place and making bright pink flowers.

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This garish, inappropriate lily which I really did try in earnest to kill is perhaps the most vigorous plant in the garden.

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I didn't know Lilium lancifolium was super-common and even weedy when I bought it. I've been plucking bulbils off and potting them up for a couple weeks now. If you didn't know, the spots are purple. How groovy is that!

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We had this container on our front steps, but I decided to move it to the backyard when we painted the front steps. It was crowded up front, so I made room for it back here. I am happy.

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Usually aeonium go dormant in summer, but this one seems more alive than ever. Also note: Seaside Daisy (Erigeron glaucus).

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8/8/12

Moraga Tiled Steps, Golden Gate Heights, and Grandview Park

I got up earrrrly this morning for one of my favorite stairway walks. Maybe you remember it from the last time.

163 steps!

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They call these the '16th Avenue Tiled Steps', but I prefer to call them the 'Moraga Tiled Steps'. And so I will!

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There is some lovely gardening along the sides; a mix of natives, succulents and other workhorses. You'll find big drifts of black aeonium, mixed with green here.

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The steps take you toward Grandview Park, a chert outcrop dressed in wind-blown sand.

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We'll go there later. In the meantime, we'll see a bit of the neighborhood.

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This big gray ball is Helichrysum petiolare which garden books call a trailing perennial 1-3 feet high. Only when it's young. After that it mounds. This one has been pruned I think, but I can show you many, many big-balled specimens like this (heh heh). No frost for this plant.

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The far end of this walk (walk #11 in the book every San Franciscan should own) takes you to Golden Gate Heights Park, always drenched in fog and mystery.

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Golden Gate Heights, like Bernal Heights, has several big chert outcroppings.

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But a lot more hydrangeas. Hydrangeas everywhere here.

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Houses that are all garage kind up front kind of fascinate me. It's like, where's the house?

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The sun began to come out by the time we got back to Grandview.

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It's supposed to be very hot in the Central Valley this weekend. I saw 105's predicted for Sacramento. That could mean cold, thick, soaking fog on the coast. Right now we're expecting lows in the mid-50s, with a chance of precipitation. By precipitation, I think they mean fog.

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This neighborhood is called the Outer Sunset. It's far more monochrome in the aggregate than it is on the street level.

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Turning north and looking at the Marin Headlands in the distance.

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The copper-clad tower of the DeYoung Museum

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It's hard to imagine San Francisco before all the people moved in. Sand dunes for miles, rock outcrops, steep cliffs.

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Mostly remnants in evidence now.

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